John McCain is fighting for his political life as tea-bagging wingnut blowhard J.D. Hayworth is giving him a run for his money for his Senate seat. And as we've seen with all Republicans, hypocrisy is one of their favorite tools in trying to obstruct, deflect and then take credit for anything.
Now, here's what John McCain said about President Obama's SOTU speech, responding to the fact that George Bush left this country in deep and dark hole in January of 2010.
McCain: ..but it seems to me he quickly lapsed into the BIOB, that's Blame It On Bush routine, that's growing a little tiresome...
BIOB. John McCain is thinking like me, only in reverse. My thing is trying to tell people "Don't Get Fooled Again" about conservatism. But you know, now McCain is lying his butt off to try and salvage his political career. McCain is actually blaming Bush and Paulson for suspending his campaign when the bailout mess first was revealed to the public during the general election, which dealt a serious blow to his presidential run.
Under growing pressure from conservatives and "tea party" activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government's massive bailout of the financial system.
In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.
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McCain wasn't satisfied with attacking Paulson, he also lied and said that he was called into Washington by Bush himself!
In his new book "On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System," Paulson belittles McCain's contribution to the response, noting that "when it came right down to it, (McCain) had little to say in the forum he himself had called." He also called McCain's decision to return to Washington, apparently without a plan, "impulsive and risky" and even "dangerous."
McCain said Bush called him in off the campaign trail, saying a worldwide economic catastrophe was imminent and that he needed his help. "I don't know of any American, when the president of the United States calls you and tells you something like that, who wouldn't respond," McCain said. "And I came back and tried to sit down and work with Republicans and say, 'What can we do?' "
Barney Frank was on with Rachel Maddow and he called John McCain a coward.
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Heather posted a longer version of this clip when Maddow did a full-length segment on flip flopping Republicans, but the segment on McCain was spot on.
MADDOW: At the time that Senator McCain called off his campaign in 2008, you called this campaign suspension the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys. Any comment on the idea it was President Bush who asked Senator McCain to suspend his campaign?
FRANK: I‘m—I‘ve gone beyond being disappointed for John McCain to feeling sorry for him. This is such a pathetically, obviously untrue statement. Those of us who were there know it.
He was in trouble on the campaign. He was trying to change it. In fact, there was a very tough bipartisan negotiation going on. And by the way, for him to blame Paulson or Bernanke is cowardly. This was Bush. Paul and Bernanke were acting for George Bush.
And we believed that we had to do something. Democrats were pushing to add some restrictions on compensation. We‘re adding to put in those provisions that ultimately led to the TARP being paid back with a profit, but we did agree something had to be done.
Everybody was trying to get a solution, from the president to the members of Congress who were trying to work on this were unpleasantly surprised by John McCain‘s announcement. As a matter of fact, if you read what Paulson says, at one point, he came to find there had been an agreement, he was unhappy, because he wanted to be the one who did it. I said he reminded me of kind of Andy Kaufman as Mighty Mouse. “Here I come to save the day.”
So, no. John‘s recollection there—I mean, it‘s not his recollection. It‘s an invention. Look, he‘s got a very conservative primary opponent. He voted for the TARP money. He clearly supported it. And he‘s now just trying to reinvent history, but it‘s unseemly for a man like that to blame other people, because he changed his mind for political reasons.
John McCain is an expert Bush basher. In an interview with the Moonie Times back in 2008, John McCain employed the BIOB meme and blamed everything on Bush. Rightfully so, by the way:
Sen. John McCain on Wednesday blasted President Bush for building a mountain of debt for future generations, failing to pay for expanding Medicare and abusing executive powers, leveling his strongest criticism to date of an administration whose unpopularity may be dragging the Republican Party to the brink of a massive electoral defeat.
"We just let things get completely out of hand," he said of his own party's rule in the past eight years.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. McCain lashed out at a litany of Bush policies and issues that he said he would have handled differently as president, days after a poll showed that he began making up ground on Sen. Barack Obama since he emphatically sought to distance himself from Mr. Bush in the final debate.
